(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Dawn Chorus: At long last, Joshua Tree... [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-02 What a sight to wake up to... 40+ years in California, but I had never visited Joshua Tree… until now. My camping buddy Nancy and I get to Yosemite a few times every year, and have been visiting Pinnacles in springtime the last few years. We decided to mix things up a bit — so many great places out there, so many of them in California. Joshua Tree seemed like a good starting point. We planned this trip in November. Our mid-April trips to Pinnacles had been warm-to-hot, so with Joshua Tree being a few hundred miles south it made sense to go at the end of March. The state was in the depths of a drought and the ongoing La Nina did not offer much hope of improvement, but if there were going to be flowers, this would be the time. What a difference three months can make. Welcome to the desert! Two days before our departure, the campground sent a severe weather alert warning that our reservations might need to be cancelled. We were glued to the forecasts — the campground was less than 30 miles from the major southern California blizzards in early March, and the whole state was getting rain day after day after day. Snow was forecast at the campground on the morning of our arrival, though it was “not expected to accumulate.” w.t.a.f. After a slightly late start due to power outages and downed trees in my area, we faced rain and strong headwinds for almost the entirety of the 500 mile drive. With only about an hour of daylight left to set up camp, howling winds made it hard to keep the tents in place until we could stake them down. That scritchy noise in the middle of the night wasn’t critters foraging outside the tent — it was the sound of frost forming on the rain-fly. (OTOH, Great Horned Owls duetted as we drifted off to sleep.) The phrase “it seemed like a good idea at the time” came up more than once. On a recent trip to Point Reyes, we bought National Park Passports; you can stamp it at visitor centers to show where you’ve visited. We got 3 at Joshua Tree. If Thursday morning dawned cold, it also dawned clear… and beautiful. With a bit of coffee and oatmeal to warm us, we watched the sun rise over the hills and started planning our exploration. According to the trail map in our campground, there were a lot of options throughout the park, but the area around Cottonwood Springs was best for birds and flowers… literally the opposite end of the park from us. A long drive, but through the heart of the park with plenty of potential stops. The campers next door, who’d been coming to the park for years, mentioned the area around Jumbo Rock Campground/Skull Rock as a good place to walk among the park’s amazing rock formations. The timing seemed like it would work out to stop there for lunch. We made a few stops for birds we heard along the way. (Nothing like spending some time to find a thrasher, only to finally realize you’re listening to a mockingbird.) Cap Rock was a nice place to walk around and get an introduction to the heart of the park. We needed to stretch our legs, but the center of the park was surprisingly crowded for mid-day Thursday. Bypassing some of the better known stops, we took a walk around the Cap Rock Nature Trail. This short walk took us though some of the rock formations the park is known for, along with a nice assortment of plant life. A joshua tree! Big rock formation! That’s what we came for... … and birds, at last! Pair of Ladderbacked woodpeckers check out a tree (f above, m below) Finally a bird photo! Oh, wait — here’s one more: This Flicker apparently thinks it’s in the Stonepecker family. We didn’t have the heart to correct it. Onward to Skull Rock and lunch. Except … damn, was it people-y there. We should have guessed that a place called “Skull Rock” would attract lots of families with kids and other folks out for a photo-op. We opted for a trail in the opposite direction, but then I realized I was getting a bit crashy (blood sugar) so after few minutes’ break, we got back on the road. It was still 20 or so miles to Cottonwood, and the clock was ticking on our day — there were birds and flowers to be seen! Or not. We did see some birds during our drive. These are some of a kettle of 45 Turkey Vultures we passed. At the Cottonwood visitor center, we found out that this should be primetime for flowers, especially with all the rain, but because it had been so cold and windy the season was off to a slow start. No flowers = not so many birds. The staff told us that people coming from the south had reported more flowers outside the park on Box Canyon Road. (must be something about that name...) At long last, flowers! We kept up the search for a lunch spot and came upon a lovely dry wash with our long-sought flowers and birds! Flocks of Lesser goldfinches were all around, chattering away. Verdin called each other, and a Black-throated Sparrow sang from the hillside above. Lots of birdsong, but not lots of bird pictures. Oh well. We continued south to Box Canyon Road and there were some flowers but not a ton; we headed back. With our view of the traffic churning by on I-10, we opted to backtrack through the park instead, taking a slightly different route. This did allow us to visit the Joshua Tree distillery, which we’d noticed in the morning - it did not disappoint. (A bottle is destined for Yosemite this summer...) Timing is everything… This Joshua Tree from our Friday morning walk is about to burst into bloom. Friday started with a hike right from the campground on the High View Loop trail. It was a great morning for hiking — cool enough to be comfy even during the long uphill portion, and just breezy enough for crystal clear vistas, though perhaps a bit too breezy to linger at the top. We were serenaded by the dulcet tones of Cactus Wrens for much of the walk. (For those of you who are unfamiliar, Cactus Wrens sound a bit like a car with a bad starter.) There were also more Black-throated Sparrows, along with more of the usual suspects like White-winged Doves, Bewick’s Wrens, White-crowned Sparrows, Lesser Goldfinches and House Finches. High View trail is just that — sweeping views in every direction; this is looking west from the peak. This trip had been lovely, but it was definitely the least birdy travel Nancy and I have done. Fortunately, she did a bit of poking around on eBird before the trip and found one hotspot nearby — Big Morongo Canyon Preserve. We headed over there after lunch and.. damn, I wish we’d gone sooner. Big Morongo is an oasis fed by springs and Big Morongo Creek, with stands of cottonwoods and willows providing habitat for birds and other critters. As we pulled into the lot, we saw a flash of brilliant flame red — a Vermillion Flycatcher. We were greeted by chattering goldfinches and flitting butterbutts. Yay! Birds! We were already off to a great start and then we got to the trailheads and a woman next to us said “what are those?” We were surprised to see several hundred White Pelicans high above. (look close...) Perhaps they were on their way north from Salton Sea? The preserve has six well-marked trails, which include several boardwalks though lively marshes. We headed out toward the Mesquite Trail, but got distracted by a feeding station at the Nature Center & Pollinator Garden. After nearly an hour, we finally tore ourselves away. We came across Hooded Orioles on several of the trails — between their bright colors and their raucous calls, you can usually spot them quickly. But to get a photo, we had to go to the feeders. Cassin’s Finches were a surprise at the feeders — enough of a surprise that I initially misidentified them as Purple Finches, because everyone knows Cassin’s Finches are high in the Sierra. But with all the snow at high elevations, about a dozen of them have been in Big Morongo since January. The trails took us through some upland scrub and riparian marsh; a longer trail would have taken us into a chaparral canyon. Each turn in the trails brought a new and interesting vista — I can’t believe how many photos I took there. We covered what we could, then revised our departure plans so we could visit our new favorite place on the way out the next morning. The welcoming committee on Saturday morning. In the morning, we didn’t even make coffee — we just packed up and got on the road, stopping to grab breakfast at Frontier restaurant in Yucca Valley (highly recommended!) so we could get back to Big Morongo soon after opening. We headed out on the Desert Willow trail, which was just wonderful. The high point was the sheer numbers of Phainopeplas, always a favorite, but bird life of all kinds was abundant. We also spotted tracks of deer and a bobcat near one of the watering holes. The marshy areas hosted wrens and warblers (Yellow-rumped, Wilson’s, Lucy’s and Common Yellowthroats), sparrows, woodpeckers, doves… the woods were so alive! Desert mistletoe attracts Phainopeplas, like this female. She and a male were calling repeatedly in the area. There was a lot of it along the trail, and thus a lot of Phainopeplas. This is the only place I’ve been with both Ladder-backed and Nuttall’s Woodpeckers. Their voices are very different but it took us some careful observation to tell them apart visually. That extra-wide black stripe at the top of the back is a good mark for this Nuttall’s. Our trail loop took us back past the Nature Center, so of course we had to stop at the feeders again. While there, we heard discussion of a Long-eared Owl off one of the boardwalks. (We’d heard about the owl earlier and searched a little, but gave up so we could see more of the preserve.) A couple who were there at the feeders said they were going back for one more look before they headed out — would we like to join them? I was a little hesitant because normally one doesn’t reveal locations for sensitive species, but apparently the owl had been hanging out for months, fairly close to a trail, and didn’t seem to be bothered. I’m glad we were with someone who knew where to look — there is no way we would have spotted this Long-eared Owl on our own! Even knowing it’s there, I almost deleted this photo thinking it was just a tangle of branches. (look just left of center) At last, alas, we had to leave our birdy oasis. We headed to the coast and spent the night with Nancy’s friend in Los Osos, a community on the south side of Morro Bay. We had a delicious dinner and a fun evening of conversation, then went for a walk at the edge of the bay on Sunday morning before we headed out. Not quite ready to call it quits, we also stopped in San Miguel and took a walk in a small nature preserve there. Famous rock, next to famous smokestacks, with not so famous birds in foreground. The Salinas River is running high in San Miguel. Phoebes, butterbutts, swallows and kingbirds loved the lush landscape. It wasn’t the birdiest, and it had its hard moments — but damn, it was a great trip. . (a few more photos of rocks and Big Morongo are in the comments.) [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/2/2161345/-Dawn-Chorus-At-long-last-Joshua-Tree Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/